


Judd's Corollary: A Brief Regressive Analysis of Bennett's Law

by asuralucier



Category: Another Country (1984)
Genre: Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Codependency, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Intellectual Kinship, Loneliness, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Revolution!, Sex as Coping Mechanism, Sharing a Bed, Simplified Marxism, Some Discussion of Canonical Suicide, brief internalized homophobia, unexpected intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 03:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19433398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: Concerning: patent denial, spiraling despair, and unconditional surrender.





	Judd's Corollary: A Brief Regressive Analysis of Bennett's Law

**Author's Note:**

  * For [education](https://archiveofourown.org/users/education/gifts).



> Thank you to Sarren for being such a discerning beta. All remaining mistakes are mine.

“Alone at last!”

Judd looked down at the fingers splayed just inches below his collarbone, either carelessly or carefully, depending on how he chose to read Bennett’s mood. Bennett was keen to show the world teeth, but not his fangs. Judd felt his skin prickle against the touch.

“Get off,” Judd said, and Bennett grinned, bright and oppressed like everyone else in this godforsaken excuse of a learning institution.

Except Guy Bennett wasn’t like everyone else. He had, in Judd’s esteemed clever opinion, exactly half a brain. Half where a brain should rightfully be in his head. The other half was a lost cause somewhere down south.

Martineau was dead.

The whole of the House was attending a special session of prayers, predictably led by Fowler, which meant it was not worth attending. Besides, someone needed to do the sheets. Even when Judd didn’t want to seem ruly, the capitalist machine always found another use for him.

“Do anything for you?” Bennett quipped. He brushed a hand over his unkempt curls and for a moment Judd wondered if. No, of course not; if he gave into that sort of rebellion there would never be a revolution. That sort of rebellion was shadowed and secret and had an insidious hand in instilling fears into the System. Judd knew that better than anyone else. He was so often privy to that sort of secret, because Bennett bubbled with them.

“Of course not,” Judd shook himself. “Not your sort.”

Bennett laughed, “Not my sort? Careful now, you might start sounding like _them_ , Judd. And that’s the first theorem of Bennett’s law: patent denial. I’ll give you a week to get to the second.”

“Which is?”

“Spiralling despair.”

Judd regarded his friend – for they were friends, under a peculiar sort of criterion – with only the thinnest veneer of exasperation holding his expression together. “Did you mean it?”

“Did I mean what?”

“That people only give in to you because they’re lonely.”

“I didn’t have to mean anything,” said Bennett. “It’s only the truth.” He stepped right up to Judd then, and very carefully buttoned him up. And then, leaving the lightest feather-touch on the edge of Judd’s shoulder, Bennett was gone, taking the stairs two steps at a time.

Judd for one, didn’t think he was lonely at all.

* * *

_Alone at last!_ The more Judd thought about it, the more the pronouncement seemed absurd. They were never alone. And yet exactly half of Bennett’s brain could succinctly divine that the sufferers of Bennett’s Law (perhaps he could suggest very gently that Bennett change such a law to not a law but a sort of syphilis. Bennett’s Syphilis) were in fact, just _lonely_.

Hearing footsteps, Judd quickly snapped off his torch and felt the spine of _Das Kapital_ dig tellingly into his spine. And then there was an insistent tugging at his covers.

Redoubling his efforts to maintain a hold on his duvet, Judd said, “Don’t take my torch. Let go.”

“I’m not going to take your torch.”

Someone who sounded remarkably like Bennett and not Fowler or any other entity was by his bed. Thinking of those people as entities was a waste of revolutionary spirit, for if a man became an entity, then he was beholden to a System that would never change. Yet Judd could feel his years of hegemonic conditioning seeping into his resolve. He finally peeked over the covers.

“Move,” said Bennett, prodding Judd meaningfully with a knee.

The room was still and if Judd strained his ears, he could hear at least twenty other people breathing. There was a part of him that wondered if Bennett had gone more barmy than he already was from stuffing himself with cock.

Still, he shifted and first thing Judd noted was that Bennett’s feet were bare and cold.

Bennett said, “Something’s poking me in the back.”

“Must be Marx,” Judd said flatly and moved it out of the way.

“There you go getting my hopes up.”

“Shut up,” said Judd. The bed was indeed very small and only really fit for one body, and now it seemed like the only thing Judd could feel was Bennett’s coldness.

As for Judd, well, he didn’t mind being outside the System. In fact, he almost craved it. It was roomier, even if people (including Bennett) would insist that it just seemed lonely.

Somehow Judd could tell Bennett was staring at him, even in the dark. “Did I tell you I sucked off Martineau? Couldn’t have been more than a month ago.”

And now Martineau was dead.

Conceivably, the boy’s death had nothing to do with Bennett.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Judd said, and he managed, in those words, to convince himself that he didn’t.

“Is it my fault?” Bennett’s voice was quiet, and reminded Judd profoundly of the sort of voice that made the world at large so eager to start lying to its hapless inhabitants.

Judd sighed, “Would you like a platitude or the truth?”

“You’re a Marxist, aren’t you? You always tell me the truth. Lies uphold the machine and strengthen the oppressive superstructure _et cetera, et cetera_.”

“So you do listen to me,” Judd said, surprised.

“Hm,” Bennett made a noncommittal noise in his throat. He reached out and touched the edge of Judd’s collar, as if smoothing over an invisible wrinkle. “I do. Sometimes. So tell me a truth, Judd.”

The touch, though just as equivocal as the sound that had not long ago left Bennett’s mouth, seemed to pin Judd in place. Though he was also pinned there–with barely an inch of sagging mattress between them maintaining a semblance of propriety–by practical considerations. If he moved even an inch away, he’d be right on his arse on the floor.

“It’s not your fault,” Judd said, out of both capitalist duty and also because it happened to be true. It was unusual that conflicting ideologies aligned to sense or truth. “Sometimes, things are your fault. But not this time. Just like how people aren’t always lonely.”

“By people, you mean _you_ ,” Bennett said, lowering his voice with unmistakable insinuation. He leaned closer, violating, in effect, no man’s land. Bennett’s large toe, still cold as a lingering winter draft outside of a creaking window, circled the bump of Judd’s ankle.

“Bennett,” Judd felt his breathing stutter. It was not as if Bennett hadn’t touched him before now. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but they were more alone now than they had been in the laundry room and all around them lay other people.

“Yes, Judd.”

“What in God’s name,” Judd swallowed thickly, “are you doing?”

“Aren’t Marxists not supposed to believe in God? Since he is the original patron saint of inequality. Worship me or else be burnt or turned into a pillar of salt! Moreover, the Holy City better be constructed in the middle of Trafalgar Square this century so better get on that, chaps.”

“He’s as good a placeholder as any,” Judd shrugged, or tried to. The whole of his body suddenly seemed unmoored from everything he knew before.

And suddenly, Bennett wasn’t so much Bennett as he was what everyone else thought he was. Almost instantly, he became this thing, this formless apparition upon which a boy inside a prison – or indeed a learning institution – might be tempted to project his alleged loneliness. Who knew the difference in this fine, blasted country?

Bennett said, “Shall I tell you about the third theorem of Bennett’s Law?”

“Everyone gives in eventually?” Judd tried. “You’ve said.”

Now it wasn’t just Bennett’s toe that was on the prowl. It was also his right hand, unseemingly warm, creeping near the waistband of Judd’s pyjama trousers . First, it was only Bennett’s thumb, pressing against Judd’s thigh, and then it was the whole of his hand, with the palm flat against skin, creeping close to Judd’s cock, which, though by no means suffering from particular disuse, was unprepared for such an onslaught.

“Thought I’d go with unconditional surrender, to fit with the theme.” Bennett leaned in, close enough for Judd to taste the air he was breathing. “Found you, Tommy.”

“This is my spirit of revolution,” Judd said, vaguely aware that his voice was thinning out. “It’s hardly the same thing. If I were, I mean. And I’m not.”

“I thought you thought that sort of thing was distinctly unrevolutionary.” Bennett leaned in even closer. “Things done in the shadows.”

Bennett squeezed him, not very hard, but with definite meaning, and Judd started to make a noise, a sound that might have seemed to him unnatural. But then Bennett surged forward, almost like a wave, desperately human and present, and swallowed the sound Judd made by sucking it out through his teeth.

Bennett’s hand found Judd underneath his duvet, and following the inhale of what should be Judd’s breath, the grip reached its destination. Almost involuntarily, Judd arched his hips forward hungering for more of the touch.

Unconditional surrender indeed.

Bennett’s mouth, when he made to part from him, was suddenly all that Judd noticed. Most notably, its absence. “Judd, does the usherette touch you?”

“I told you she doesn’t,” Judd said. “We go out to have afternoon tea. It’d be...odd, to say the least.”

Bennett snorted. “Come now, you’ve always wanted to _revolutionise_ the state of teatime. Now cock can be served right alongside scones and clotted cream. Even you’d approve, it’d bring down a whole fucking institution.”

“You,” Judd started and then gave up. He tapped Bennett pointedly in the temple, not very kindly either. Bennett’s mouth went a funny shape. He released Judd’s cock and instead, clamped him around the wrist. Judd couldn’t shake profound feeling that something had gone missing.

Bennett moved, so that Judd’s fingers were no longer in danger of poking him in the eyes, and instead, closed his mouth around them. As for Judd, the strange inviting warmth of Bennett’s tongue against his skin almost took away the thought that his friend’s mouth had been other places.

And yet, it was those other places, other bodies, tongues and mouths that Bennett likely took from others; he took the loneliness from these other boys, all privy to the same four walls and non-being. Because Bennett was exactly half clever, he was not like them.

Neither was Judd, though they were not two of a kind.

“Yes, me,” said Bennett. He leaned in for a kiss and Judd’s fingers slipped out of his mouth. Judd tasted loneliness and want on his tongue. Judd was more prepared for it this time. He remembered it, and clutched it close next to his soul.

* * *

As for the rest, it couldn’t be anything but awkward and stolen. The ghost of Martineau hung over Bennett and over Judd by proximity.

Determined to distract himself, Judd curled his own hand around Bennett’s cock, and as the other boy rutted against him it became less a thing of helpless masculine habit and more a transmutation of a desire to become more than himself.

This too, was revolution.

Bennett murmured something intelligible but also profoundly secret, with his head tucked in against Judd’s throat and his hips shook now, without their previous surety of rhythm but simply reaching. Reaching for something else.

And in the moment, as Judd felt Bennett’s release, sticky all over his fingers, he thought he understood that something else. It was for these same reasons that Bennett listened to Judd and took in the Marxist beliefs imprinted on Judd’s person, because the world simply wasn’t what he thought it could be.

Judd felt Bennett redouble his efforts on his cock and in the dark, the world grew large enough for two people. But also narrow enough to be just for them.

“Tommy, you’re close, aren’t you? You have no cause to be shy with me.”

“Why, because you’ve seen it all before?” Judd said.

“But I haven’t seen you,” Bennett said and pressed his thumb very deliberately against the head of Judd’s erection and Judd felt himself let go, almost like a wave released to crash against the side of a cliff.

In the quiet haze that followed, Judd took Bennett’s hand. He pressed his mouth against Bennett’s knuckles and held very still.


End file.
